That's a problem with relying on summons, yes, and it only gets worse as the game goes along.
Personally, I'm fine with the casting time for the elemental trio; all of those take about thirteen seconds. That's a bit long, certainly, but not too much so; I think it's bearable. However, all of the rest (except for two who are the same) are too long - Siren is 17 seconds, as are two others, the majority of the rest are around 20 seconds, with a few notable much longer exceptions; Diablos is over 35 seconds long, and there's an even longer one.
Nearly all of those could be shortened (I don't think any of them should be more than 10 seconds), and that'd make play notably less bothersome; it's pretty clear that the developers were so in love with their new ability to make amazing summon evocations they didn't stop to think if they should. A sadly common situation, and more so the more powerful systems become.
Compare the backdrops for the dorm corridor during the day and the dorm corridor at night.
Same environment, but the lighting on every surface, the shadows are all different. You would essentially need two versions of each backdrop for nighttime and daytime.
Definitely impossible on the hardware restrictions at work.
In my memories, this dungeon was a lot more confusing, not gonna lie. But as the map shows... you can honestly just hug the right wall the entire time and you'll hit literally everything you need to. Still, just complicated enough that I'm glad it's optional, and hey said optional reward is great not gonna complain about getting another GF!
The guide walkthrough for the Tomb Of The Unknown King (minus the boss strategies) is one paragraph, with one simple rule: always turn right. Which is similar to the usual advice of navigating a maze of "place a hand on one wall and follow it throughout".
This is in fact a trick I learned as a child as a general purpose maze-solving solution: You put a hand on the right (or left, it's arbitrary) wall, and then you just keep going, and that will solve most mazes you'll encounter in newspapers or video games or the like.
This won't solve mazes that are discontinuous (say, there is a big box at the center that doesn't connect to the walls and that's your goal), but provided there is an entrance at one point of the outer wall and an exit at another point, this method will solve every maze you could encounter. However, this is incredibly inefficient, and may indeed sometimes result in literally the most inefficient route possible through a maze.
This is a situation in which that guideline is really effective and makes everything faster and I had to deliberately ignore it.
You'd think the question of why Caraway is acting against his government and what he expects to come out of the other side of this little coup would arise at some point, wouldn't you?
But no, SeeDs obey orders and don't ask questions.
Hell of a racket these car rental places run; "Hire our cars, drive until the tank's empty, then just fucking abandon it in the wilderness! It's fine, we'll come get it eventually, letting wild monsters fuck in the backseat for six hours between rentals is a feature."
And I'm pretty sure they'll just let me rent a new car?
I have pretty much infinite money thanks to my SeeD salary, maybe I should just try and park as many cars as I possibly can on the overworld map and see what happens
JUST BECAUSE MY FAVORITE D&D CLASS IS BARBARIAN DOESN'T MEAN YOU CAN STEREOTYPE ME LIKE THIS
Honestly I think we should give Squall a little credit here, if only a little. Squall is a shithead, we all know this, he's very antisocial and cold and rude, but... he doesn't actually disparage authority all that much? That's Seifer's hat. Squall, so far, has more been defined by being like "ok :|" while chattering away in his head. When he has been shitty it's usually to those equal to or subordinate to him, when there's no 'greater reason' for them to be bothering him and for him to observe social niceties.
Here, despite failing to push very hard for bringing Rinoa with them (an objectively very hard sell), he's still stepping up to the plate with her dad. First with some trademark mental comments denying that their obligation to Rinoa is lesser to them than the assassination mission, and then backtalking a dude who self-evidently is not intimidated by the glamour and status of SeeD in order to state fairly overtly that any authority he has over the group and by extension Rinoa ends the second the sorceress mission does.
It doesn't help Rinoa in the immediate, and it's undoubtedly partially motivated by teenage dick-waving, but for someone as quiet as Squall I feel it's worth noting all the same.
Besides, it's not like Rinoa would ever demonstrate Plucky Anime Girl Protagonist Energy and act on her own while everybody makes plan for her and accidentally causes chaos, that would never happen
Is irving the Nega-Vincent? Outgoing with a bright color scheme against black, red, and brooding? Serial womanizer instead of Vinny's terminal oneitis? And as everyone who's read Dracula knows, Cowboys are the natural enemy of the Vampire.
In the Japanese text, Rinoa re-iterates not to leave her behind. I suspect this is the dialogue for if you didn't have Rinoa in your party.
If so, there's a dialogue choice where Squall can either ask if this is an order, or ask what she means by not leaving her behind. For the former, Squall reminds her that their contract is still in effect, and Rinoa hesitates to make it an explicit order, before saying "let's just go with that".
For the latter, Squall asks if Rinoa's worried that something will happen that would make them leave her behind, and Rinoa avoids the question, this time explicitly saying it's an order. Squall then thinks "she's always making things troublesome".
Given I don't think there's a dialogue choice if Rinoa was in the party in the earlier conversation, I wonder why there's one here, especially since the choice doesn't really matter, even for characterization.
Yeah, I checked a playthrough, and this is a party order difference, not a translation difference - if you have Rinoa in your party when you arrive at Caraway's estate, she has that conversation before you enter, and there's no dialogue option. If you don't, she has it in the waiting room, and there is.
Amusingly, in Japanese Caraway describes it as "a gimmick clock in bad taste". He only ever refers to it as a "gimmick clock", so presumably the translators had to have looked at the game itself to know it's a carousel.
Oh wow, all of that regarding compatibility is the most overwrought and underexplained mechanic in the most FFVIII way. Is there any information about it in game, or is it entirely in the realm of game guides/figuring it out yourself?
Now the idea doesn't strike me as terrible at first glance, some way to try and enforce a bit of a niche on characters by having them build up preferred elements/GFs over time, but something like that really needs some acknowledgement from the game itself.
It does make me wonder if it might not be possible to solve the dual issues of 1) the characters having no mechanical identity and 2) the game being too easy by, say, following those rules about GF/element preference not as a soft guideline, but as a self-enforced limitation: Quistis is paired with Shiva, so she will never junction Ifrit, and she is never given a Fire spell, but gets all the Ice magic, while Zell gets Ifrit and so will never junction Shiva and has no Fire spells, something like that.
But I'd need to make, like, a spreadsheet for it, and I'd need the game to cool off on swapping people in and out of my party so I can be confident I'll stick with whoever I define those preferences for.
For any player that fails to break the game, GF remain their primary damage source all the way throughout.
Shiva in particular, due to being super-effective against a large amount of enemies, if used often can keep up with level and generally outdamage straight attacks until you reach 150 STR of thereabouts, and if kept on the same person it'll have max compatibility and so be fast enough you don't need to worry about charge times; put it all together and, against multiple enemies, summons will be the superior option over straight attacks. And the late-game GF will have an easier time reaching their max damage than attacks will.
The thing with GF is, they grow in power much faster than characters (as in, they have way better scaling with level), and since the enemy scale to party level and you're swapping out character often enough that the average level is usually lower than Squall's level, they outlevel the opposition and thus retain a certain edge for a while. They're the fallback option for players who can't figure out any better way to increase their DPS - it can get boring, but as a workhorse option, they do their job pretty well.
This is, in fact, something I distinctly recall from my playthrough as a child: I had very little understanding of how to follow the system's built-in incentives (it didn't occur to me, for instance, to stockpile 100 of a given spell by dragging out one battle forever, I would just Draw a little here and a little there) and had no idea which GF Abilities were any good, so I ended up relying mostly on GFs as both my main source of damage and an extra wall of HP.
Thankfully child me was also seemingly immune to the boredom of watching the same summon animation play for the 25th time and would just enjoy it every time.
it's pretty clear that the developers were so in love with their new ability to make amazing summon evocations they didn't stop to think if they should
Actually, didn't they incorporate the long sequences into the battle system--the more you boost a GF during the animation phase, the harder it hits? If the sequences are long enough and you can boost the GF to maximum in that period, it's possible to break the 9999 damage cap.
Also, the mention of the game having no XP share system made me remember that GFs also have their own leveling system and XP growth; since I always have all GFs Junctioned to one active character, so they all gain XP at the same time, I'd naively assumed that they would all be roughly homogenous and there wouldn't be any particular issue of XP imbalance.
Actually, didn't they incorporate the long sequences into the battle system--the more you boost a GF during the animation phase, the harder it hits? If the sequences are long enough and you can boost the GF to maximum in that period, it's possible to break the 9999 damage cap.
Not exactly - there's some GF that are able to break the damage cap due to programming, but you need to boost them to get that high, they don't do it naturally. Other GF can reach 250 boost, but are still capped to 9999. Most GF are both capped and can't reach 250; the 13 seconds of the elemental trio isn't nearly long enough, for example.
Boost is clearly a workaround to make the long summoning sequences more interactive and fight the boredom, yes, but I don't think it truly succeeds.
The kill bonus. Remember? The GF who kills the enemy gets bonus EXP.
I'm willing to guess that you've summoned Quetzacotl more because, since it doesn't have STR junction the way Shiva and Ifrit do, the character equipped with it didn't hit hard enough with straight attacks, and didn't have any magic good enough to take advantage of Quetzacotl's MAG junction, so you summoned instead, and killed a few more enemies with it.
Does that sounds like what happened to you, or am I off?
EDIT: Oh, and of course Siren and Brothers joined at lower levels than the others, and have yet to catch up.
There's also the fact that if someone has multiple GFs junctioned, the xp they gain is split between the GFs, so I'm guessing you only have Quetz equipped on Squall?
Not exactly - there's some GF that are able to break the damage cap due to programming, but you need to boost them to get that high, they don't do it naturally. Other GF can reach 250 boost, but are still capped to 9999. Most GF are both capped and can't reach 250; the 13 seconds of the elemental trio isn't nearly long enough, for example.
Boost is clearly a workaround to make the long summoning sequences more interactive and fight the boredom, yes, but I don't think it truly succeeds.
The kill bonus. Remember? The GF who kills the enemy gets bonus EXP.
I'm willing to guess that you've summoned Quetzacotl more because, since it doesn't have STR junction the way Shiva and Ifrit do, the character equipped with it didn't hit hard enough with straight attacks, and didn't have any magic good enough to take advantage of Quetzacotl's MAG junction, so you summoned instead, and killed a few more enemies with it.
Does that sounds like what happened to you, or am I off?
EDIT: Oh, and of course Siren and Brothers joined at lower levels than the others, and have yet to catch up.
There's also the fact that if someone has multiple GFs junctioned, the xp they gain is split between the GFs, so I'm guessing you only have Quetz equipped on Squall?
Okay, that explains it. I was going to say, as someone who's barely done any summoning at all:
Absolutely no way this is just from Last Hit bonuses, I've summoned Siren once in this playthrough.
Not exactly - there's some GF that are able to break the damage cap due to programming, but you need to boost them to get that high, they don't do it naturally. Other GF can reach 250 boost, but are still capped to 9999. Most GF are both capped and can't reach 250; the 13 seconds of the elemental trio isn't nearly long enough, for example.
Boost is clearly a workaround to make the long summoning sequences more interactive and fight the boredom, yes, but I don't think it truly succeeds.
The kill bonus. Remember? The GF who kills the enemy gets bonus EXP.
I'm willing to guess that you've summoned Quetzacotl more because, since it doesn't have STR junction the way Shiva and Ifrit do, the character equipped with it didn't hit hard enough with straight attacks, and didn't have any magic good enough to take advantage of Quetzacotl's MAG junction, so you summoned instead, and killed a few more enemies with it.
Does that sounds like what happened to you, or am I off?
EDIT: Oh, and of course Siren and Brothers joined at lower levels than the others, and have yet to catch up.
There's also the fact that if someone has multiple GFs junctioned, the xp they gain is split between the GFs, so I'm guessing you only have Quetz equipped on Squall?
...this on the other hand, yeah. I don't remember if it was Squall but Quez tends to be on the character I've assigned Item to and so only gave one GF since they can't summon.
(No longer the case since with Quezacotl/Shiva/Ifrit/Siren/Diablos/Brothers I have enough GFs to equip 2 to all characters, but previously one character was going with Quez alone.)
Yeah, that's the case - for some reason I was remembering the EXP being split equally across all GF. I swear, FFVIII is so convoluted you can lose track of the most obvious details.
GF's also only have 500 XP per level (compared to 1000 XP per level for player characters) so differences in XP gain will have faster level gaps show up then your characters.
If I recall, Quezacotl has HP, magic and Vit, Ifrit has HP and Strength, and Shiva has Strength, Vitality and Spirit as their stat junctions.
Which means that Quez is the only starter GF that can boost your magic for easy drawing, while the other two have to be paired with one of the magic GFs (Siren and Diablos).
(Shiva and Diablos together cover all five prime stats, likewise Quez and Brothers, Ifirt/Siren however is lacking a spirit and vit junction. No matter how you shuffle these six around, there's only two vitality junctions and two spirit ones, and Shiva has two of them. You're not going to have a full junctioned party that easily. It's the kind of thing that makes one take pathways to methods some consider.. unnatural)
I just plain forget you can Boost summons at all, honestly. It isn't really obvious during the animation, unlike Squall's limit break (or regular attacks).
GF's also only have 500 XP per level (compared to 1000 XP per level for player characters) so differences in XP gain will have faster level gaps show up then your characters.
If I recall, Quezacotl has HP, magic and Vit, Ifrit has HP and Strength, and Shiva has Strength, Vitality and Spirit as their stat junctions.
Which means that Quez is the only starter GF that can boost your magic for easy drawing, while the other two have to be paired with one of the magic GFs (Siren and Diablos).
(Shiva and Diablos together cover all five prime stats, likewise Quez and Brothers, Ifirt/Siren however is lacking a spirit and vit junction. No matter how you shuffle these six around, there's only two vitality junctions and two spirit ones, and Shiva has two of them. You're not going to have a full junctioned party that easily. It's the kind of thing that makes one take pathways to methods some consider.. unnatural)
Well now you've got me overthinking all the ways in which this assassination attempt could go wrong. Seifer's the most obvious upset, you're right, but if they don't want to tip their hand about their new pet SeeD, hm.
It could just be that the sniping plan fails for obvious reasons, and the Sorceress is just straight up powerful enough that Squall and co don't stand a chance. It would make sense, if being a bit anticlimactic. Or she just teleports away, or stalls for tbe Galbadian security detail.
Of course, there's the little detail of her mind affecting powers. If she could take Seifer down without a fight, why not our party? Even just getting one or two SeeDs to either stand down or turn around and fight the party would be enough to render the assassination no longer feasible. And if that doesn't happen I might be wondering why it doesn't come up again.
Besides, it's not like Rinoa would ever demonstrate Plucky Anime Girl Protagonist Energy and act on her own while everybody makes plan for her and accidentally causes chaos, that would never happen
Oooor it's possible Rinoa escapes her house arrest and in the process causes enough chaos to throw off the assassination. I hope that's not the case, because that would very veer into the territory of actively frustrating.
Of course, there's the little detail of her mind affecting powers. If she could take Seifer down without a fight, why not our party? Even just getting one or two SeeDs to either stand down or turn around and fight the party would be enough to render the assassination no longer feasible. And if that doesn't happen I might be wondering why it doesn't come up again.
...You know, thinking about it the Sorceress kind of already did kick the party's ass. Sure, cutscene and all, but the minute she showed up on the scene previously she locked out the entire party with just a gesture so she could do her little monologue and run off with Seifer. If the sniper part of the plan fails, zero reason she couldn't shut them down again in a straight up fight.
Squall, mentally: "(...Not again.)" Rinoa: "Zell wants your support." Squall, mentally: "(I knew it was gonna be something like that…) Rinoa: "Any kind of encouragement will make…" Squall, mentally: "(That's just to ease your mind. Am I the only one who thinks that? No, I'm sure Seifer…)" Rinoa: "Don't you ever worry about or even think about the well-being of your comrades?" Squall, mentally: "(I don't believe in relying on others.)" Rinoa: "Don't you understand!?" Squall, mentally: "(...Whatever.)" Rinoa: "Are you listening, Squall?"
There's something deeply funny in Squall's character here and other places. He has these arguments with people where he defeats their arguments with his logic and rationality, but they only happen in his own head? So you can see Squall being smug about winning arguments that he in never in fact actually has. He literally feels superior about his unvoiced cynicism, it's a great character trait, and deeply pathetic when thought about.
That's the next trick the Centra Mines pull on you: There are no rewards available to Laguna's team. Everything, everything (aside from a couple of Draw points) is set up for Squall's later visit.
But not, like, legible set-up. No, no that would be too easy.
If there was some kind of feedback in the moment, so you could get an idea what the 'correct' answer was if you were clever enough in the moment, then rewards hours and hours later would be kind of fun!
But the only feedback is when you do or don't get those rewards all that time later so...ugh.
Especially because Laguna, in his typical hypocritical fashion, immediately gets cold feet himself on 'jumping off the cliff,' says that his friends "Sure have guts" (They didn't ask to jump, he threw them off) then tries to slowly climb down the cliff face, only for his foot to slip, and he falls into the water along with the others.
Rinoa: "I… really liked him. He was always full of confidence, smart… Just by talking to him, I felt like I could take on the world." Quistis: "Your boyfriend?" Rinoa: "I don't really know. I… I think I was in love. I wonder how he felt…"
The nature of Rinoa and Seifer's relationship was ambiguous up to this point, and the reveal is that it was ambiguous to Rinoa as well. She feels like the two of them had dating 'vibes', but nothing definitive. Also the reveal that Seifer had a friend outside Garden who he was maybe dating and who discussed their lives with each other does do more to show how Squall is less developed as a person than Seifer, which is amusing.
Squall: "(I liked him… wasn't really a bad guy… He was one of us… Seifer… You've become just a memory. Will they… Will they talk about me this way if I die, too? Squall was this and that. Using past tense, saying whatever they want? So this is what death is all about… Not for me. I won't have it!!!)" Quistis: "What's wrong, Squall?"
I was wrong. He isn't a fuckboi. He is the fuckboiest. Holy shit. Just absolutely shameless. And why Selphie and Rinoa specifically? Why not Quistis? Is she too old for him?? Is it the teacher vibes that he doesn't like??
I am guessing that this is the titular 'Unknown King' whose tomb this is, but, like… Could I have any context at all about what is happening here. Was he being sealed by the brothers? Protected by them but his protection accidentally ended up an imprisonment? Did we just hard confirmation of an afterlife?
Honestly a solid B+. I was fully expecting to hate the gimmick, but actually it… Engaged my brainmeats in a pleasing way? It was a fairly simple navigation challenge with basic memory checks
Zell: "So the father's a top military officer, and the daughter's a member of an anti-government faction!? That's bad… Really BAD!" General Caraway: "Yes, indeed. It's a serious problem. But it doesn't concern you. It's our problem. "
Even if the rank is unclear, it seems safe to say Caraway is quite senior in the Galbadian military. The same military that finds itself stymied by SeeD being hired by their enemies. Personally I wonder if it's not just that he has no objection to Galbadia's imperialism, just it being subverted by Edea. Explaining why he's standoffish with SeeD, an organization he's forced to use but that he dislikes for fighting his country.
"A new era is here. A new era where we women will be advancing in society."
"I wonder if the sorceress will be an ally to women?"
In contrast to the usual fear and concern over what the sorceress represents for the world, it's interesting to see a few people in-universe view her as a potential feminist icon.
There's something deeply funny in Squall's character here and other places. He has these arguments with people where he defeats their arguments with his logic and rationality, but they only happen in his own head? So you can see Squall being smug about winning arguments that he in never in fact actually has. He literally feels superior about his unvoiced cynicism, it's a great character trait, and deeply pathetic when thought about.
I will admit, I have on occasion gotten incredibly angry with someone based on the things they said in an entirely imaginary conversation that I played out inside my own head from start to finish, where I uncharitably envisaged them saying the worst and most hurtful things possible.
It has been the work of years to try and cut the legs out from under my own brain when it starts doings this catastrophizing nonsense.
I also do have the issue where having determined a plan to do something causes me to treat it as done, and forget to execute any of the plan I just made.
So, in notes for the Italian translation, not much to report; most of the conversations upon entering Deling City and throughout the Tomb of the Unknown King are the same, word for word or close enough.
- The first significant change is in the conversation between Squall and Rinoa, when she asks him not to leave her alone; when she asks if he wants her to explain why, he think to himself "that's not necessary", before going into the spoken "just tell us what to do" line. This seems to me like a difference from the English line "this might take a while"; in both Squall is cutting Rinoa short in his mind, but in one is because he doesn't want to hear her talk, while in the other is because he doesn't think she has to explain herself to him.
It's a small difference, but it gives a certain nuance to Squall's feelings towards Rinoa - in the Italian version he's basically trusting her to have good motives, or at least not considering himself entitled to question them, which is progress from his previous dismissal of her that the English version is missing. And in this context, his follow-up line is him "speaking his mind", in a roundabout way; still far off from Rinoa's request that he think for himself, but a small step in that direction.
Considering this is just on the heel of the Galbadia Garden talk about Seifer's fate, I think this adds a bit of progress to the Squall-Rinoa relationship that the English version is missing on.
- When Caraway is making the group wait, Rinoa has a sentence that seems like it's apologizing on his behalf, saying "He's so used to make people wait he must thinks that's normal by now". It's the same sentiment, that Caraway always makes people wait on him, but presented in a less directly accusatory manner. She still storms off, with "I'm gonna give him an earful!", so it's not like she's happy about it, so it's a bit of a weird change to make.
- She also caps off the "this is my home" with "make yourselves at home as well", which makes the sudden surprise a bit more funny.
- Squall's standing up for Rinoa also uses a different thought bubble, a "why would he ask that?", with a sense of annoyance instead of the puzzlement of the "what's his problem?" that the English version conveys. It gives the sense that Squall didn't want to go into threats, and he consider it crass of Caraway to have forced the threat out of him, which isn't the impression I would get from the English line.
The rest of the plan discussion proceeds exactly the same as in the English version, in all of its glorious absurdity. So, as I said, not much to report here, but I think the few tidbits of difference I found do suggest to me the translators fine-tuned some of the dialogue intentionally to at least some degree. The meat of what happens is the same, but the nuances soften Squall just a little and show inklings of him opening up more to Rinoa, which helps get a better sense for things, in my opinion.
Same environment, but the lighting on every surface, the shadows are all different. You would essentially need two versions of each backdrop for nighttime and daytime.
Definitely impossible on the hardware restrictions at work.
Too expensive for the kind of scene renders it is (3-4 cds...) maybe, with the quality expected, but it was very possible. The PC game series hero quest was doing it with pallete swaps since the 1990s. They 'just' had to accept compromises like very simple lighting simulated by gamma and pallete changes. Though, even the typical 1990s PC was a different beast than a playstation... which is why later games like xenogears are so strange and impressive... Square levelled up a lot on the pre rendered quasi 3d to the point they actually made a 3d game in the same style in the playstation, by switching their usual the 3d part with the 2d (Characters are 2d, objects and foreground are 3d)...
- The first significant change is in the conversation between Squall and Rinoa, when she asks him not to leave her alone; when she asks if he wants her to explain why, he think to himself "that's not necessary", before going into the spoken "just tell us what to do" line. This seems to me like a difference from the English line "this might take a while"; in both Squall is cutting Rinoa short in his mind, but in one is because he doesn't want to hear her talk, while in the other is because he doesn't think she has to explain herself to him.
It's fascinating to see how Squall's lines are "softened" progressively through translations, although given how the Italian and English versions are apparently both based on the Japanese text, the softening from English to Italian is probably just coincidence.
The Italian version sounds like Squall trusts that Rinoa has a good reason, with "trust" being the important factor. The English version of "This might take a while" sounds like Squall may or may not be interested in knowing the reason, but he doesn't want to go over it right now. (That Rinoa doesn't give the reason even during the long wait for Caraway means Squall probably isn't interested.)
The Japanese version is directly "Is this going to be blah-blah-blah", which is beyond simply not being interested; Squall is so uninterested in Rinoa's potential explanations that he pre-emptively dismisses it as nonsense ramblings. It's not just non-interest, but contempt.
- Squall's standing up for Rinoa also uses a different thought bubble, a "why would he ask that?", with a sense of annoyance instead of the puzzlement of the "what's his problem?" that the English version conveys. It gives the sense that Squall didn't want to go into threats, and he consider it crass of Caraway to have forced the threat out of him, which isn't the impression I would get from the English line.
Yeah, this is a bit closer to the Japanese text, which is "Don't ask that". As in, "don't ask questions you don't want to know the answer to". Maybe "Why would he ask that" in English lacks the tone of annoyance, so it might be the English translation just went with the general idea of Squall feeling disrespected and snapping back in his mind, without focusing on the specifics of word choice.
